Lostvestige: Bamboo Trellis Tutorial

When I was planning my vegetable garden, I definitely knew I would need trellises. I was planning on planting lots of viney plants; cucumbers, squash, beans, eggplants ect. What I really wanted were fancy wooden trellises, but I also didn't want to spend a bunch of money on them because I knew I needed a lot. I thought about making them myself, but then I would have to buy wood and use power tools and that just seemed beyond my capability. Haha. Then I remembered there were a lot of bamboo forests around my neighborhood so I thought about sneaking and chopping down a few stalks to use for the trellises, but luckily someone down the street had already chopped a bunch down in their back yard and had put it on the side of the road! So one morning me and my mom hopped in her car and went to get them. But just our luck a city truck had beat us there by about 2 minutes and was already picking them up. -_- We drove down another street and amazingly enough someone else had also chopped down a bunch of bamboo from their yard so we loaded a bunch up in her car as quick as we could before the city truck made its way around!

I was so happy with how they turned out, I thought I would write a little tutorial on how I made my vegetable trellises.

Step 1: Obtain bamboo sticks.

You can chop them down yourself, wait for someone else to do it for you and then take some for yourself, or you can buy them at lowes. They're about a 1-3 dollars a piece there.

Step 2: Cut them down to size

I cut mine down to 4 feet each with a saws all. (Well my husband did that part! Me + power tools does not seem like a good combination!) I didn't cut down the thinnest pieces of bamboo yet because I was saving those for the crossbeams and it's hard to know what size you'll need ahead of time.

Of course if you choose to buy them from a store you can skip this step!

Step 3: Use hot glue to hold them in place

I used hot glue to temporarily hold the three pieces in place so it would be easier to wrap the twine. The hot glue does not stick to the bamboo very well though so you have to very careful not to bump it.

Step 4: Wrap the twine

I wrapped the twine very tightly where the three sticks intersected together. I didn't have a specific pattern I followed, I just made sure I wrapped them the twine around them in every way possible. When I was done I squirted some hot glue into any crevices to hold the twine in place.

Step 5: Add the crossbeams

This is where the thin uncut bamboo pieces come in. I measured and cut the exact length I needed and then used hot glue to hole them in place while I wrapped the twine, just as I did for the top of the trellis. I did two layers but you can do as many or as little as you want. You can even leave this part off, but your trellis will not be as stable without at least one level.